Buttressed Icicle Mulberry

Old French bouterez, thrusting-mass — past-participle of buttress, derived from bouter (to thrust). As a color modifier, buttressed implies a saturated-and-architecturally-supported quality, the deep-rich color of Gothic-Cathedral flying-buttress-and-rib-vault stone-architecture. Sits at the bold-and-fortified end of the grid, parallel to fortified and reinforced.

Old English īsgicel, ice-and-icicle. As a color modifier, icicle implies a hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip quality, the visual register of Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle hand-hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle-and-Cairngorm-ledge icicle-and-hanging-ice-and-eaves-frozen-drip surfaces under Alpine-eaves-and-Norwegian-stave-icicle-and-Cairngorm-ledge Alpine-Dolomites-and-Norwegian-stave-church frozen-drip-light. Sits at the modifier-and-weather end of the grid, parallel to floe and berg in usage.

The genus Morus — the white mulberry (M. alba) feeds silkworms; the black mulberry (M. nigra) bears the deep purple fruit that stains everything it touches. The color refers to a ripe black mulberry: a saturated, slightly red-shifted very deep purple with the slight juiciness of a compound fruit. Cooler than wine, warmer than indigo, with the agricultural weight of a tree that supported the entire Chinese silk industry for two thousand years.